Cleaner Air On The Cheap In China

Like many start-up ideas, Thomas Talhelm's came from personal experience. The American Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia was living in Beijing last year when air pollution in the city hit record highs. He was stunned at the cost of buying an air filter for his bedroom, which he figured would total $2,000 a year.

Talhelm’s cheaper alternative:Attaching a HEPA filter that costs less than $15 to a locally made fan priced at as little as $20. The dirt comes out of the air as it is blown outwards through the fan. Talhelm's research suggests the filter starts to lose its efficiency after three months. But, at about $15 a HEPA, that’s a lot of savings over big international brands like Philips with comparable results.

Talhelm has set up a business with American friends Gus Tate and Ted Patterson and a Chinese partner, Anna Guo, called “Smart Air,” to sell the low-cost creation. So far,they aren't shipping outside of China.But if you reside in a polluted Chinese city, live in relatively tight quarters, and care about your own lungs, it might be worth checking out here or here.

University of Virginia graduate student Thomas Talhelm, left, is building an air purifier business in China while he completes his Ph.D. research in the country.

-- Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina

I'm a senior editor and the Shanghai bureau chief of Forbes magazine. Now in my 16th year at Forbes, I compile the Forbes China Rich List and the Taiwan Rich List. I was previously a correspondent for Bloomberg News in Taipei and Shanghai and for the Asian Wall Street Journa...